Who owns Lakera?
Check Point acquired Lakera. Lakera is known for Gandalf, its public prompt-injection challenge.
Beam vs CHECK POINT
Beam vs Lakera
Lakera, now part of Check Point, does runtime security for generative AI applications and is widely known for Gandalf, its public prompt-injection challenge. That is application-layer protection. Beam sits at the developer endpoint, recording coding-agent activity and scanning skills and MCP configs, with no enforcement.
Beam vs Lakera, side by side
Details below are drawn from a September 2026 review of the AI agent security market. Some figures are vendor-sourced or analyst estimates, and this is a fast-moving space — check with each vendor before you buy.
| Beam | Lakera (Check Point) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Local-first activity monitor and pre-run scanner for AI coding agents. Early prototype. | Runtime GenAI security, acquired by Check Point. |
| Monitoring | Shell commands, file changes, tool calls, network endpoints and browser actions from harnesses such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, normalised into local NDJSON with risk flags and evidence attached. | Runtime security for generative AI applications. |
| Skill / MCP scanning | Yes. SKILL.md files and MCP configurations are scanned before you run them, using 11 heuristic patterns plus an MCP version-pin check. | Not specifically covered in our source research. |
| Blocking / enforcement | No. Beam observes and flags. It never allows or denies an action. | Runtime protection is core to the product. |
| Individual use | Runs locally for one person on one machine. Shared teams, fleet rollout and approvals are not built yet. | None listed, though Gandalf is publicly available as a prompt-injection game. |
| Deployment | A local collector plus a local interface. No MDM package, no central console, no SSO, no SOC 2, no SIEM forwarding. | Enterprise deployment within Check Point. |
| Source / licence | Not open source today. | Commercial, not open source. |
| Pricing | Not published. | Enterprise, no public price. |
Lakera in numbers
As reported in our source research. Some figures are estimates.
- Acquisition
- Acquired by Check Point
- Known for
- Gandalf, its public prompt-injection challenge
- Focus
- Runtime GenAI security
Where Lakera does more
- Runtime protection for generative AI applications, backed by Check Point's enterprise reach.
- Deep public credibility on prompt injection through Gandalf.
- Enforcement at runtime, which Beam does not have.
Where Beam differs
- Beam watches coding agents on a developer machine rather than GenAI applications in production.
- Beam's scan reads a skill file or MCP configuration before you run it.
- Beam is local-first, with no service to route traffic through.
Beam’s current gaps
- Beam observes and flags. It has no blocking or enforcement, so it cannot stop a destructive command.
- There is no MDM package, central console, SSO or SOC 2 report, so it is not ready for a managed fleet rollout.
- Scanning is heuristic pattern matching. It produces false positives, misses novel phrasing, and is not a guarantee of safety.
- Beam is early and has no published pricing. Every tool on this page is further along in at least one dimension.
Which one fits
If you are protecting a GenAI application at runtime, Lakera is built for that and has Check Point behind it. Beam is for the other end of the problem: the agent running on an engineer's laptop.
FAQ
Does Lakera monitor local coding agents?
Our source research describes runtime GenAI security rather than developer-endpoint monitoring, which is Beam's focus.
Does Beam stop prompt injection?
No. Beam flags heuristic patterns in skill files and MCP configs before you run them and records what agents do afterwards. It does not intercept or block anything.
See how Beam works
Beam is an early, local-first prototype. Read what it actually does today before comparing it further.